


Tend the earth

by imperfectcircle



Series: Stories by theme: Romance [15]
Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Bodyswap, Canon Queer Character, Getting Together, LA Era (Crooked Media RPF), Multi, OT3, Pining, brief David Lammy cameo (aka a Lammeo), polyamorous pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 06:38:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19223677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperfectcircle/pseuds/imperfectcircle
Summary: At his feet, Pundit is gazing up at him with simple, easy love. "I know, baby," Tommy says to her. "I'm not a very good Lovett, but I'm doing my best."





	Tend the earth

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is dedicated to my new slack friends! You are a wonderful bunch of humans and I really like being a ridiculous nerd with you all. <3 <3 <3
> 
> With thanks to Laliandra for beta, cheerleading and encyclopaedic knowledge of canon, Sonni89 for cheerleading, and sadtomato for correcting my Britishisms. All mistakes, poor choices and terrible ideas remain mine. 
> 
> Please keep it secret, keep it safe. Don't talk about this places people can google it, and please please don't bring it to the attention of anyone even vaguely linked to the people mentioned here.

Tommy wakes up feeling the wrong kind of anxious. He's expecting his normal deal: nervous energy jittering its way through his body, the same sick formless buzz he's woken up with for as long as he can remember. Instead it's a whole other thing, a gnawing worry concentrated in his stomach that tells him two things: 

One: A good night's sleep has done nothing to relieve his stress about the way he reacted to Jon last night. 

Two: This is not his body. 

Shit. 

He keeps his eyes closed, not wanting to see who he's ended up in, and allows himself just a brief moment of thanks that he's not still working at the White House. That would have been a clusterfuck. They all had it drilled into them, what to do if they had a swap -- an Extracorporeal Exchange Incident -- while working there. Who to contact, who not to contact, what to say, what not to say. All the codes. Compared to that, a civilian swap is a walk in the fucking park. 

A soft, wet something nuzzles at his neck, accompanied by the smell and sound of a very familiar dog. He opens his eyes to face Pundit and, he supposes, the situation. 

"Okay," Tommy says in Lovett's voice. "This is. We can do this." 

Lovett sleeps in boxers, Tommy discovers, thank fucking god. His vision is good enough to find his glasses, bad enough to need to before venturing out of bed. And while Lovett stores his anxiety in his gut, relief hits him right square in the chest. 

"Hey Pundit," Tommy says, his voice sounding doubly strange to him -- it's not his own, of course, but it's not Lovett's as he's used to it, either. It's deeper, the same as the difference between hearing your voice in your own head and hearing it recorded. It's flatter, too, lacking the essential Lovett-ness that makes everyone around him sit up and take notice. "Hey baby girl, give me five minutes, then let's get you outside."

Tommy brushes his -- Lovett's -- teeth carefully. This is leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but memories dialled up to eleven -- he doesn't want Lovett to come back to a body in anything less than pristine condition. No gums pushed back from brushing too hard, breath as minty fresh as can be. "This isn't amateur hour here," he tells himself out loud in Lovett's voice. He's been trusted with something, however involuntarily, and he's not going to fuck it up. 

He takes his time in the shower, too. It could be weird, but it's not -- he's not creeping on Lovett, he's just taking care. There was a bottle of conditioner under the sink, so he brought it in with him, read the instructions, and is now waiting the prescribed one minute before he can rinse it out. He has his eyes closed, uses the time to try to get used to the balance of Lovett's body, the feel of his feet planted solidly on the wet tiles. It's good. A minute's break from the everything of it all. 

Lovett's towel is getting scratchy with use, so he digs around for a clean one in the jumble of the bathroom closet. Because why not? Lovett deserves nice things. And if he notices -- which, unlikely -- he's not going to read into it. He'll just assume Tommy was being Tommy about laundry again. 

At his feet, Pundit is gazing up at him with simple, easy love. "I know, baby," Tommy says to her. "I'm not a very good Lovett, but I'm doing my best." 

She wuffs at him affectionately. 

He can do this. One step at a time. One foot in front of the other. He can do this. 

His body is sitting at Lovett's kitchen table, Lucca at his feet. It's not Lovett, he can tell that much just from the posture -- then his body turns to give him an earnest, open smile that can only belong to one person. 

"Hey," Jon says, only a hint of nervousness. "Lovett will be right over with my body." 

"Glad we're all respecting the spirit and the letter of the law," Tommy says dryly. They may no longer be working in the White House, but wandering around in someone else's body without the right paperwork is still technically illegal. 

"Right," Jon half-says, half-laughs. "We're rebels."

Jon speaking with Tommy's voice is weird in the exact opposite way to Tommy hearing himself speak with Lovett's. The voice is higher than Tommy is used to hearing inside his own head, and it's got an unfeigned warmth that makes Tommy's normally dull tones sound rich and compelling. The only thing Tommy recognises as his own is the roughness to it, the way it gets when Tommy hasn't had a chance to burn off some of his excess energy. 

"Hey, so, I'm sorry about how I reacted last night," Tommy makes himself say before Jon can act like there’s nothing to forgive. It's not Jon's fault Tommy was an asshole, and it shouldn't be on Jon to carry it. 

Jon tries for an unaffected laugh. "What? No, you were great, it's fine." 

"No, I was a jerk," Tommy says. "I was just surprised."

He shouldn't have been. He knew Jon on the campaign trail, looking at Obama with hero worship that was careful never to shade into something else. He knew Jon in DC, while Lovett was there lighting up every room he was in, and afterwards when he wasn't. He knew Jon in Chicago, a fraction more interested in talking to that one international trade guy than to anyone else. He should have expected that Jon in LA might finally act on it. He should be happy that Jon in LA is acting on it. 

"I'm honestly so happy for you," Tommy says. He can't tell if he sounds sincere or not in Lovett's voice. "All I want is for you to be happy, man, you know that. And if Kyle is a part of that, then I already like him." 

Tommy does not already like this faceless Kyle guy, who picked Jon up in a bookstore like some kind of romantic comedy meet cute. But he wants to. He thinks about Jon's shyness, last night. His bravery. He really wants to like Kyle. 

"Really?" Jon asks, the hope radiating off him. 

"Really," Tommy says. "I should have said it like that last night. Thanks for giving me the do-over today."

“Thanks,” Jon says, as if there’s anything to thank Tommy for. “I have a good feeling about this, you know?”

“Then I’m rooting for you guys,” Tommy says. He wants to mean it, and that has to be enough for now. 

Jon looks so grateful it hurts. Tommy knows his opinion matters to Jon -- of course it does -- but seeing the intensity of it on his own face really hammers it home. His opinion matters to Jon, so he’s going to stop being such a pathetic sour grapes fuckup and start having the right opinion: that what's important is Jon’s happiness. 

He starts tidying up the kitchen. Lovett has left empty cereal bowls strewn across the counter, a couple of pans forlornly soaking in the sink, because of course he has. It's easier to focus on that then to think back to his stuttering, lukewarm response yesterday. The trying-not-to-be-hurt on Jon's face. Everyone deserves a better coming out than that, and Jon deserves the best of everything. 

"That looks so weird," Jon says while Tommy is scrubbing the rim of Lovett's sink. "It's obviously you in there. His body, but your everything else."

Tommy wants to tease him for the cliche of the remark -- the one thing everyone knows about swaps is how hard it is to look like anyone but yourself, even in someone else's body. But honestly he gets it. Whatever everyone may know or not know, nothing has prepared him for how clearly Jon in Tommy's body is still Jon -- the way he sits, the way he puts Tommy’s awkward body at ease. Even his smile on Tommy’s face is nothing at all like anything Tommy’s seen in photos or mirrors: it’s pure Jon Favreau, the goodness shining out of him. 

“Lovett in your body is going to be wild,” Tommy says. “I can’t wait to see him try to sit his regular way with your limbs.”

It's a trip, seeing his own face wearing the exact same expression he's seen Jon direct at him so many times over the years. 

"Thank fuck this didn't happen at the White House," Tommy says. 

Jon laughs. "Do you remember when Dan and Alyssa--?"

Alyssa had a ball in Dan's body, arm-wrestling everyone who sat still long enough, manspreading beyond the bounds of decency. Tommy can’t remember what Dan was like in Alyssa’s body -- he thinks maybe Dan just quietly got on with it, though thinking about it now he wonders if Alyssa drew the attention away deliberately. 

It's funny now. Tommy can't help but laugh along with Jon's memories -- _Alyssa's face when she came back from that bathroom, I thought she was going to kill Lovett with Dan's bare hands_ \-- and join in with some of his own. But at the time. Yeah. It hadn't been funny, handling the day-to-day crises of the White House without two key senior staff. And then there was all the shit Dan and Alyssa had to go through with the Secret Service, first proving that it had happened, then proving that it wasn't still happening. 

Lovett arrives in Jon's body, Leo at his heels. The dogs all greet each other like they've been apart for years. Watching the three of them play together almost takes the sting out of how Lucca has been ignoring Tommy, all her love focused on the body she's used to. 

"Favreau, fuck you, your body is amazing," Lovett says instead of hello. "I have, I swear to god, never felt this calm and handsome in my entire life. Is this how you feel all the time? How do you not just float away on a cloud of your own inner peace?" 

Lovett's _I'm joking so I don't have to talk about things, please tell me I'm funny_ grin on Jon's face loosens something in Tommy's (Lovett's) chest. If this had to happen, he's so ridiculously, stupidly glad it had to happen with these two. He trusts Jon with his body -- to be kind to it, to feel the anxious mess without judging it, to still like Tommy afterwards. He trusts himself with Lovett's body -- to look after it, to give it back to Lovett as gently and carefully as he deserves. And, bizarre as it is, he thinks he's going to enjoy Lovett in Jon's body. It feels like a gift, to see one set of familiar expressions on another familiar face -- he can't wait to see what Lovett's scowl looks like on Jon's features. 

"We should go for a run," Lovett says. He brandishes Jon's gym bag like a trophy. "I need to take this pinnacle of masculine perfection out for a spin." 

"Hey," Tommy protests through his laughter. 

"Co-pinnacle," Lovett amends cheerfully. "Though I guess as the only one in an actual marathon runner's body, you'll be leading the way?" 

While Jon argues with Lovett over how long he can play the marathon runner card -- forever, is Lovett's not unreasonable opinion -- Tommy focuses on his own breathing. He has a whole folder of breathing and meditation apps on his phone, but applying even the most basic breathing exercise to Lovett's body _fits_ in a way it's never seemed in his own. Maybe the unfamiliarity of it makes it more real, somehow? He can feel every breath he takes, can feel how each exhale releases a tiny bit of the tension he's added to Lovett's body. 

"Fuck you," Jon concludes, laughing with Tommy's whole body. "But yeah, I could use a run."

Of course he could. Lovett's got Jon's gentleness, Tommy's got Lovett's simple, contained reactions, and poor Jon is stuck with the whole-body disaster that is Tommy. 

Tommy grimaces at Jon. Might as well acknowledge it. "Sorry about the--" He gestures. 

Before Jon can do more than blink confusion, Lovett is leaping in front of that grenade: 

"Hey, what, no, you're going to apologise to Favs for giving him sculpted cheekbones and deltoids for days? I should be the one apologising to _you_ , and I'm not going to, so no one else is allowed to either."

Tommy splutters helplessly to keep from saying anything incriminating. It's a trick he's perfected over the years of easy friendship with Jon and Lovett -- an embarrassed laugh, a thumb pressed to his brow, anything to push down the first thing he wants to say when Lovett is self-deprecating or Jon is painfully optimistic. 

"Wow, that's weird," Lovett says, watching him appraisingly. "You guys have already had this conversation, right?" He does what Tommy thinks might be an impression of Jon -- lowers his pitch and broadens his vowels, Boston-style, only of course coming out of Jon's mouth the whole thing just sounds like a bizarre self-parody: "'Hey, Tommy, isn't it wild to see your textbook WASP posture propping up the body of a Jewish schlub?'" And then, oh god, Jon's voice is doing an impression of Tommy as mediated by Lovett's brain, which is exactly as mind-melting as you'd expect: "'Yes, Jon, it's almost as wild as seeing your disarming smile coming from my unfairly handsome mouth.'"

It's so close to what Tommy had been thinking about Lovett in Jon's body that it takes Tommy a moment to reassure himself that this is just Lovett being Lovett, he hasn't magically gained the ability to read Tommy's mind along with the rest of this disaster. 

Jon's laughing protest is accompanied by a full-faced blush that Tommy would happily never see from the outside again. Still flushed red, he asks Lovett, "Did you bring a spare pair of running shoes? Me and Tommy--"

"Yeah, I know, I know, you and Tommy have the same shoe size, just further evidence of your perfect and beautiful bond. Of course I brought two pairs of running shoes. Clearly you're underestimating how important it is to me to beat you in a test of physical prowess." 

"Is it really winning if you have to use my body to do it?" Jon asks. 

"Spoken like a man who's never had a threesome," Lovett says. 

Tommy watches his own face flush again, beet red to his hairline. Jon has had precisely one threesome in his life, Tommy knows, two women who took him home and rode his face and his dick _like i was made for it, Tommy_ in one of the best sexual experiences of his life. Tommy won't pretend he hasn't gotten off to the thought of it, or to the memory of Jon telling him, the intimacy of Jon's drunken mix of wonder and shame. _They just used me over and over again. I. I really liked it._

"Right," Tommy says, clapping his hands together before Lovett can do more than half-form whatever deeply inappropriate joke he's going to make next. "Lovett, where do you keep your running gear?"

The answer, unsurprisingly, is on his bedroom floor. 

Running in Lovett's body is a lot more work than he expected. 

"You okay there?" Lovett puffs, jogging backwards in Jon's body like an absolute fucking douchebag. 

Tommy wants to say something mean, can feel the urge building, but he swallows it down -- he doesn't trust himself to find the right balance between funny and hurtful. Pundit and Leo trot happily at his ankles, delighted both their humans are running together. 

Jon circles back towards them, having sprinted off ahead with Lucca. "Your legs are ridiculous, Vietor." He says it with such warmth Tommy feels a phantom blush on his cheeks. 

Maybe this is going to be okay. The swap thing, but also the Kyle thing -- he really, honestly, genuinely is happy that Jon is finally stretching out those long-cramped muscles, and for the first time today he believes he'll get over that it's not towards Lovett or Tommy. Not that Jon could know Tommy's an option, but he has to know -- he has to know -- that Lovett is. Anyway. Not the point. The point is, this could be okay. 

"Says Mr Core Strength over here?" Lovett says, interrupting wherever Tommy's meandering thoughts are about to take him next. "I hate you both so much." But even as he says it, he's dropping back to run alongside Tommy, offering a gentle, sincere half-smile. "You're running like you're you," he says. He sounds like he's just making a casual observation, no judgement here. Lovett's own brand of kindness. "Stop expecting your body to line up right -- pretend you're trying to teach me the right form."

It's exactly the right advice, and once again it hits Tommy just how lucky he is that this has happened with Lovett and Jon. He could so easily hate every second of this -- the unfamiliarity, the lack of control -- but instead the worst bits are bearable and the best bits are genuinely fun. It's true the odds were in favour of him swapping with Jon or Lovett if it was ever going to happen to him, but still. He's so grateful for them. 

"The only thing that would make this more perfect," Lovett muses as Jon sprints off again, "would be if I could still watch Jon's ass. Not that yours isn’t a good look on him, because damn." 

Correction: He's mostly grateful for them. 

Turns out they all feel better for the run, even Tommy. 

Jon radiates contentment, making Tommy's body look the kind of relaxed he normally only achieves after really good sex. The same thought, or one similar, has clearly occurred to Lovett too -- he keeps darting these tiny glances at Jon, the same ones Tommy used to see him direct at Jon in DC, the same ones Tommy has worked hard never to echo himself. 

Lovett flops Jon's body down over the couch, a long-limbed version of his normal sprawl that looks both deeply unfamiliar and deeply familiar at the same time. Pundit and Leo are nestled up next to him, sleeping soundly. 

And Tommy feels better, too. He really does. Normally he uses running to get out of his head, to push his body past the point where he can think in full sentences, but he wasn't going to do that to Lovett's body. So instead he'd settled into the run, focusing on getting his form perfect for Lovett's size and musculature, and found himself enjoying it. 

"Favs," Lovett says, "I'm sorry, but I'm never giving this bad boy back."

"Bad boy," Jon mouths at Tommy. Tommy rolls his eyes. 

"You're not?" Jon says easily, his _okay, Lovett, I'm listening_ tone remarkably similar in Tommy's voice. 

"I'm going to get an injunction, keep us all like this until I have (a) done an Iron Man --" Lovett is holding his hands in the air, ticking items off one by one. "-- (b) confronted at least three high school bullies; (c) gotten thoroughly laid."

Tommy smiles to see his instinctive twitch of protectiveness mirrored in Jon. He's lost count of the number of times their drunken conversations have meandered towards how much they fucking hate Lovett's high school, and what they'd do if they ever met one of these bullies in real life.

"Done an Iron Man?" Jon prompts. “You’re the marathon runner.”

"Thank you for admitting it,” Lovett says faux-graciously. “But that was hard fucking work. I bet it would be a breeze in this temple to clean living and eternal optimism.” 

Neither Jon nor Tommy touch point c. If it's a cliche to talk about how obvious it is when someone's in the wrong body, it's twice that and then some to talk about sex during a swap. It's a fine and fertile subgenre of porn, but just like most porn, it's neither common nor sexy in real life. 

"It'd be a treat for the fans," Tommy offers. "If it's still going tomorrow, we should do an ad read or something, see if anyone can tell when it goes out." 

There's like less than a 1% chance it'll still be going tomorrow, but Lovett chuckles anyway. "I like that." He drops into his impression of Jon again. "'Hello, and welcome to Pod Save America. I'm your host, Jon Luscious Lips Favreau. With me are my two gorgeous cohosts, Tommy Deltoids Vietor and Jon Dat Ass Lovett.'"

Tommy tries to pitch his voice as Generic New Yorker: "'Thank you, Jon. This week we'll be talking about my complicated feelings for Robert Muller and Nancy Pelosi, and how awe-inspiringly brilliant the Red Sox continue to be.'"

Lovett manages a quick "Fuck you" through his laughter.

"'Always a pleasure, Jon,'" Jon says, putting a little more Boston in his vowels but otherwise not changing his pitch. "'I've never told anyone this before, but--'"

Darkness. A brief, fleeting memory of pain. And Tommy is back in his own body, stunned and dizzy with the sudden shift in everything. For a moment he thinks he's going to throw up, but then that subsides, leaving him lost and confused with his mouth half-open, caught in the middle of telling Jon's joke. 

"Wow," Lovett says. He sounds sleep-fuzzed. "That was. Wow."

"Agreed," Tommy manages, with Jon's "Yeah," coming out at the same time. 

"Bet you're relieved we didn't have fuck each other back into place," Lovett says. He's just saying it to say something, so Jon and Tommy ignore it. If Tommy feels a little twinge at the thought, that's no one's business but his own. 

"How long was that?" Jon asks, looking down at his watch. "I went to sleep about midnight in my own body, woke up at 7 in Tommy's."

"3am and 6:30am, thanks for that, asshole."

Tommy shakes his head. "A little after midnight and way later than either of you. He didn't even set an alarm," he tells Jon. He doesn't mention he was awake again 2-3. Lovett's already given them 3 as an upper bound for when this could have started. 

"It's the _weekend_ ," Lovett protests. "And somehow _I'm_ the unreasonable one here?"

"So between six and a half and ten hours," Jon concludes. He sighs. "What does California state law say about it? Illinois you had to file your I-triple-R-10 for anything over six hours."

Tommy can feel the confusion showing on his face. He didn't know Jon had had a swap in Chicago.

"I didn't," Jon says, answering the question he didn't ask. "But we were mandatory reporters for the school, remember?" 

Tommy doesn’t remember much about his stint at the Institute of Politics. That time was mostly spent picking up the remaining pieces of his life and seeing if he recognised any of them. 

"Twenty-four hours!" Lovett says triumphantly, brandishing his phone. "God bless every hippy liberal in this beautiful West Coast paradise."

"You know it's forty-eight hours in Texas," Tommy says, just to be a dick. "And Georgia has a law on the books removing the requirement the second Heine v. Borel gets overturned."

"Fine, my facile reading of a complex political issue doesn't bear scrutiny, I don't care, the point is we don't have to fill out five million pages of intrusive forms and then pay for the privilege.” 

It's such a relief to hear Lovett’s voice sounding like Lovett again. The rightness of it hits Tommy in the chest. He risks a look at Jon, watches unreadable expressions flitting across Jon’s face as he settles back into his own skin. And yeah, two for two, he has the sinking feeling this whole thing may have just set him back years in his ability not to be weird about his best friends. 

They're quiet for a while, fucking around on their phones, but then Jon breaks the silence:

"Hey, so, I think this might be my fault."

He looks guilty-nervous, which are two emotions that should never be on Jon's face. Tommy wants to give him a hug and also fight someone for him. 

"How could this possibly be your fault?" Lovett asks. "EEIs are a wholly random phenomenon, like radioactive emissions, or Marco Rubio accidentally tweeting something cogent. They're not caused _by_ anything, unless you know something science doesn't?" 

Jon looks genuinely miserable. 

"I don't. I just. You know they say it can be triggered by unresolved issues?" 

"And walking under a ladder and saying Bloody Mary three times backwards," Lovett says. "Please, if unresolved issues caused EEIs, I would have spent the entire late nineties in other people's bodies." He pauses. "And the two thousands. And most of this decade. My point being, you can't blame yourself for this one, Favreau. The weight of the world does not rest on whichever shoulders you're currently inhabiting." 

Jon manages a weak laugh. It's not very convincing. "I just think maybe if I'd told you guys earlier about Kyle, or if I'd realised how I--"

"Hey, no, _no_ ," Tommy says. Lovett overlaps his words with, "Jon, no, that isn't--"

Lovett cuts himself off and gestures for Tommy to go ahead, like Tommy will be able to deal with this better than him when Lovett is the one who always knows how to be kind and Tommy is just the one who fucks things up and hopes if he works hard enough it won't matter. 

"You didn't cause this, Jon," Tommy says. "Swaps aren't caused by anything, they just happen. But if they _were_ caused by unresolved issues, this would have happened before you started resolving yours, not now you're dating a guy and talking to us about it and, uh, self-actualising the fuck out life." 

Jon doesn’t look convinced. If anything, he looks even more guilty, like Tommy has uncovered some further terrible secret. 

"And if you did," Lovett adds, speaking slowly, working it out as he goes, "which you didn't, then we wouldn't be mad at you. Ride or die, right? You wouldn't blame me if it were my crap causing this -- which, again, it isn't, because it can't, because these things are random, and I can't believe we're having this conversation when we could _finally_ be talking about hot guys in front of Tommy and making him feel all weird in ways he doesn't fully understand." 

It's just a joke, because it always it, but Tommy's laugh sticks in his throat. 

Lovett's eyes dart to his, then dart away again. 

#

_One month later_

Tommy goes to sleep alone and wakes up the little spoon. The warmth against his back resolves itself — male, asleep, very naked — as Tommy's brain tries to panic in a body too blissfully relaxed to let him. 

The stranger behind him does a full body yawn that involves pressing himself against Tommy in all kinds of interesting ways, and a tiny, treacherous part of Tommy thinks, _Why not?_

Why not let this happen? Why not pretend to himself in his half-asleep confusion that he's not making a choice? Why not just follow where this takes him and regret it later?

It's a good fantasy, anyway, even as he squirms out of the stranger’s arms to get some distance between them. 

The guy is, huh, not what he would have guessed. Lovett’s type in DC veered towards what he once described as “soulful twinks in ill-fitting suits”. This guy is a good ten years older than Lovett, thick salt-and-pepper hair and a smile full of sexual promise beaming straight at Tommy. 

It's very effective. 

“Hey,” the guy says, voice gravelly. “You going to offer me a coffee before you kick me out?”

Tommy swallows down his gratitude. “Sure.” Then, because he doesn't want this guy to think Lovett’s an inconsiderate lay: “Last night was so great. You were amazing.”

The guy’s deep laugh goes straight to Tommy's — Lovett’s? — dick. Tommy allows himself the briefest fantasy of crawling right back into bed and seeing what happens. It wouldn't be out of character for Lovett to look regretful. Might even improve his chances of a repeat. 

“You weren't so bad yourself,” the guy says. 

Fuck, Lovett knows how to pick them. 

Downstairs, Tommy finally checks his phone. 

Jon Favreau: (06:32) FUCK! Sorry Tommy - JL  
Jon Favreau: (06:33) Meet at Favs’ place?  
Tommy Vietor: (07:06) What have you done to Tommy? - JF  
Jon Favreau: (07:07) Nothing  
Tommy Vietor: (07:10) Those three dots are making me nervous - JF  
Jon Favreau: (07:12) You can't expect me to live like a monk, ok? Just come over when you're ready. Bring coffee  
Tommy Vietor: (07:14) I told Tanya. She's not expecting us in today - JF  
Tommy Vietor: (07:35) omw - JF

Separately, in the conversation just between Jon’s phone and Tommy’s, Lovett has written:

(07:15) His name is Mark, we’ve hooked up before, he knows I'm not looking for anything serious - JL  
(07:15) I really am sorry - JL  
(07:16) _[this message was deleted]_

Tommy gets the coffee maker going and tries not to feel any particular way about Lovett not looking for anything serious. Maybe if Mark were a soulful twink in an ill-fitting suit. 

Just like last time they all swapped, the buzz of guilt he's expecting doesn't hit. He doesn't love the gut twist he gets instead, but it's easier to deal with — just like last time, he can pretend he's soothing Lovett, not himself.

He makes it to Jon’s half an hour after Mark leaves, three Dunkins coffees and a bag of donut holes to smooth the inevitable awkwardness of—

“How was Mark?” he hears his own voice greet him before he can even get through the door. 

“Fuck you,” Jon’s voice snaps, colored all the more brightly by Lovett’s distinctive mix of amusement and irritation. 

He weighs his options, decides to go with, “Mark was a gentleman.” In Lovett’s voice it comes out prissy enough he has to swallow the laugh that threatens to bubble up like a reflex. 

Jon is flushed bright red, Tommy’s skin belying his attempt at easy, unbothered teasing. It's comforting to see Tommy's not the only one knocked off balance. A tiny, mean part of Tommy is happy, too, that Kyle has not changed this aspect of Jon's essential Jon-ness. 

Lovett makes gimme hands for the donut holes. “Oooh, you're my favourite. Fuck Favs and his puritanical sex-shaming ways, you and me and all the donut holes belong over here.”

Can't argue with that. Tommy sits himself down on the couch next to Lovett, ignoring the look of betrayal Jon shoots him. 

"Not like he can talk, anyway," Lovett continues. "Guess who woke up to some _highly_ explicit photos from the mysterious Kyle. Still never met him, but at least now I know what his dick looks like."

Jon chokes on his protest, eventually getting out some garbled version of, "I said I'm sorry." 

It's the closest Lovett or Tommy have got to explicitly raising that they still haven't met Kyle. If lying were in Jon's skill set, Tommy might think he'd made Kyle up -- as it is, he just thinks a whole bunch of uncharitable thoughts about a guy who has time to fuck Jon but not meet his friends.

That, or maybe worse, that Jon is the one who doesn't want them to meet Kyle. Tommy has been doing his best to be a normal amount of supportive, walking the tightrope between not overselling it and not leaving any doubt that he's got Jon's back, but this wouldn't exactly be the first time he's been too little or too much. But whether it's Kyle's fault or Tommy's, either way, Jon hasn't introduced them, dodges the question whenever it comes up. 

“He went for a run before you got here,” Lovett says to Tommy, changing the subject with an eye roll. “I had a nap because, again, waking up at 6:30 is for fascists and people who iron their towels.”

Tommy isn't sure why he does it. He knows — he knows — it's Lovett in there. But it's Jon’s body, and that plus the swell of warmth he feels at the joke triggers an instinct that bypasses every check and balance Lovett has trained into him. He's got his arm thrown over Jon’s shoulders, that rough squeeze-jostle of two simple Boston bozos who can't believe their luck, before he remembers no one's body is what it seems.

Lovett’s arm isn't long enough to be slung the way Tommy’s would be, and his chest is just that bit broader, so instead of Tommy hanging off Jon easily, he's pressed right up against Lovett-in-Jon’s-body, the rough hug just slightly more intimate than anyone wanted. He can feel Jon’s chest move with Lovett’s too-even breathing. It's maybe the third most sexually confusing moment of his life. 

He pulls back. Eventually. 

Lovett has his (Jon's) mouth twisted up into a wry smile that Tommy can't look at directly. 

Jon is watching them both, fond and amused and something else Tommy can’t put his finger on, at least not when it’s on his own face rather than Jon’s. 

"Sorry," Tommy mutters to Lovett. "I forgot you weren't Jon." 

Lovett takes a breath to say something scathing and then pulls it back, says instead, "You took care of Mark for me _and_ brought donut holes. What kind of Extracorporeal Exchange Co-Partner would I be if I couldn't put up with a little misdirected rough housing?" He pauses. "Co-Co-Partner? What's it called when there's three of you?"

"Still Co-Partner," Tommy answers. He'd looked it up. "The highest verified number of EECPs is fourteen, but there are records of a twenty-one way exchange in sixteenth century India." 

"Nerd." Jon motions for a donut hole, whatever he was thinking before pushed back down again. Tommy would like to think he's not still feeling responsible for the EEIs, but he doesn't hold out much hope. 

Jon catches the donut hole Tommy throws at him, throws it up in the air and tries -- fails -- to get it in his mouth. 

Lovett covers his face with his hands. "Your body is embarrassed for you." 

"I'd like to see you do any better," Jon says. There's sugar down his chin where he missed his mouth. Tommy, only just recovered from the whole misaligned hug thing with Lovett, is now hit with a moment of _want_ for Jon's affronted-but-amused grin playing out on Tommy's sugar-sweetened lips. Which. Huh. Okay, if nothing else, at least that's a new contender for most sexually confusing moment of his life, knocking the hug down to fourth place. 

The whole thing devolves from there. None of them have the hand-eye-mouth coordination they're used to, much to the delight of all three dogs. It's a ridiculous, happy moment, uncoiling whatever tension Tommy had let build in Lovett's gut. It reminds him of his promise last time -- he needs to take care of this body, to give it back untouched by the stress he brings to his own. 

They take the dogs out. Might as well get some fresh air, let the dogs enjoy the unexpected day out of the office. 

"Oh, hey, what did you tell Tanya?" Lovett asks. They're at the dog park nearest Jon's, watching the Leo and Lucca wrestle while Pundit lets a cockerpoo sniff her butt.

"Right," Jon says. "Just that we were having an EEI, we'd let her know if there was anything to deal with."

"Did you see the thing she just sent us?" Lovett asks.

The three of them have swapped phones -- or swapped phones back, whatever the right term is. They all already had each other's fingerprints on their Touch IDs, so they don't even have to bother typing in their passcodes. ("Like pre-historic hunter-gatherers," Lovett had said, "laboriously tapping in each number to open up twitter and see if Thog is still on his anti-fire bullshit.") 

Tommy hasn't. He checks now, sees the outline of a segment on privacy, EEIs, and the Supreme Court. It's good. They haven't done anything on EEIs since that incident with the French ambassador last year, and that was PSTW, not all three of them. 

"We should record it today," Lovett says. Pushes. "Before we swap back. It'll have more impact."

Tommy knows he's right. Isn't sure how he feels about it. Last time, they didn't even talk about it afterwards, not really, and certainly didn't discuss using it to push the issue. It had been a private thing. No one else's business. 

He looks to Jon, who has indecision written all over his (Tommy's) face. Even if they're going to talk about it later, do they really need to do it now, while it's happening? 

"I know," Lovett says. "It's no one else's business, do we really need to do it now?" 

Tommy and Jon share a look. They may all know each other a little too well. 

Lovett is intensely private except when he's not -- or, equally, aggressively open except when he's not. If he can use it -- or he doesn't want it used against him -- he'll put anything out there, front and centre, _I'm smarter and funnier than you about this, so don't even try_. 

Tommy and Jon, though. They weren't forged in that particular crucible. 

Pundit bounces up to Tommy, expecting to be scooped up and cuddled by her human. Wrong human, but he obliges her anyway, scooping her up in Lovett's broad arms to cuddle against his chest. 

She licks his face. 

"Jon's body is a wonderland," Lovett says, "but I can't wait to have my dog back again."

It’s stopped being embarrassing and started being weirdly gratifying that Jon in Tommy's body blushes just as much as Tommy ever does. 

"We have to report it this time," Jon says, clearly thinking out loud. They all looked it up after last time -- a second EEI needs to be registered, no matter how long it lasts. Once you've swapped twice, the chances of further swaps increase by 1000-2000%. "This way we get ahead of the story, if there is one."

"Tanya's outline was good," Tommy says. "We should see if Dan can dial in. Get him to guess who's who." 

Lovett laughs at that, a burst of surprised amusement. "He'll hate it." 

Tommy lets himself smirk. Doesn't think about what it looks like on Lovett's face. "So much."

"Shame Keep It's not recording today," Jon says. He's smiling too, creasing Tommy's face into familiar lines. "I could have gone on as you." 

They go off on a whole riff from there -- Lovett does a good Louis impression, even hampered by Jon's "basic basicness, oh my god", and Tommy plays Jon, impersonating him the way Lovett does, all flat tones and wide-but-bashful smiles. Jon is laughing too hard to play anyone, just protesting weakly at this character assassination, bending down to pet Lucca when she runs up to him, done with her wrestle and keen for love. 

Tommy feels that same tug Lovett was talking about. It's strange, given the everything of it all, that the worst part is his dog's misdirected love. 

"Let's do it," Jon says, finally. "It could be fun."

It is. 

Tanya laughs herself breathless at the three of them when they get to the office, delighted by the strange familiarity of it. She didn't even blink when Travis swapped with his cousin last year, so either she feels a lot more comfortable mocking them or there's something genuinely funnier about how the three of them are. Or both. 

Travis takes one look at them and hauls Lovett off for a quick, whispered conversation that has both of them laughing immediately. Tommy likes Lovett's body language around Travis, enjoys it even more seeing it expressed in Jon's body -- he's easier around Travis than he is around most people, but not as easy as he is around Jon and Tommy. 

Priyanka acts like they haven't swapped, which you'd think would be at best annoying and at worst really fucking annoying, but she makes it work, her light, generous humour exactly what's needed to make it a fun shared joke, not a dick move. 

It's fun. It feels good to share this. To invite their Crooked family in on the thing that's happening to them. Tommy wouldn't have guessed that, going in, but then he wouldn't have guessed the other thing, either, that this weird, discomforting, involuntary loss of control could just be another thing he does with his best friends. 

They don't make it to the recording studio before they swap back. One moment they're all laughing as Priyanka flirts with Lovett-as-Jon, the next darkness, a memory of pain, and then the dizzy stunned feeling of being back in his body halfway through someone else's action. He finishes the laugh that Jon started, then immediately picks Lucca up to feel her nose against his neck. He only notices then that Jon and Lovett have done exactly the same, all three of them holding their dogs while the office around them dissolves into laughter. 

"That was--" Lovett says eventually. 

"Yeah," Tommy agrees, overlapping with Jon's, "Right."

Nice to visit, but you wouldn't want to stay. 

There's a half-hearted effort to get them to do an ad-read with the studio time, but no one pushes. They go to their office instead, the three of them and the right dogs, just to have a moment to breathe. 

As they go in, Lovett says to Tommy, discomfort radiating from his body in a way it didn't from Jon's, "Hey, thanks for being, for dealing with Mark."

Tommy flushes with a mix of guilt-shame that comes naturally to his body but not Lovett's. He takes a breath, wills it down. If he can keep himself from fucking up Lovett's body with all his everything, he can maybe try to do something of the same for his own. 

"It's fine," he says. Then, because that sounds very much like it's not fine, adds, "Really. I. We can talk about it later, maybe? But it really is fine, I didn't mind."

Lovett of five years ago would have taken the out, would have insisted there was no need to talk about it ever again. Lovett of today shoots Tommy exactly the shrewd look he was expecting. "Okay. Interesting."

Jon lifts his head out of Leo's fur at that. "What's interesting?"

"Why we switched a second time," Lovett says smoothly. "I give it a week after we file our I-triple-Rs before someone tries to enroll us in a study."

Three-way swaps aren't super rare, but there's a dearth of good data on them. Most of the big studies have focused on two-way swaps, a lack all three of them felt keenly in the post-swap research binge they went on last month. 

Tommy thinks about letting someone study them. It's uncomfortable, itchy against the calm of having his body back, having Lucca back, but still being close to the others. 

Lovett rolls his eyes at whatever he sees on Jon and Tommy's faces. "Whatever. We'll talk about it when you're not both trying to absorb your dogs through your skin." He punctuates this by picking Pundit up and pressing her to his face. "Doesn't count," he says through her fur. "This is for her benefit." 

#

_One month later_

Tommy wakes up to his phone -- Lovett's phone, shit -- in boxers and a tee, with Pundit curled up against his hip. The sheets are clean, which is new. 

The phone is ringing by his pillow, but he's still halfway reaching for the foot of the bed before he course corrects. Lovett clearly doesn't have the same need he does to make it just that bit harder to check his phone compulsively at 3am. 

"You've got a call at 7:30," his own voice tells him. "David Lammy."

Shit. David is generous to a fault, but Tommy really doesn't want to have to reschedule -- it's hard enough to get time with him these days, what with the ongoing clusterfuck that is current British politics. 

Tommy puts on Lovett's glasses. Right. They have to do the interview. It's fine, they've discussed it, and maybe it's better that the first time they do it like this is on PSTW, with only the hardcore policy nerds listening. Like a trial run. 

On Lovett's bedside table is a neat pile of folded clothes and a copy of that Michelle Alexander book Tommy's been meaning to read for a while, with a note on top in Lovett's scrawl reading, _To save you having to navigate the laundry pile - JL_ There’s some of Lovett’s normal detritus -- an empty drinks can, the packaging from an Amazon order -- half on top of the clothes-book-note pile, like maybe they’ve been there long enough to become part of the furniture. 

"Thanks," Tommy says to Jon. "Thank you. I'll be in-- What time is it?"

"Just turned 6. I called as soon as I realised why your alarm was set so early."

"Thanks," Tommy says a third time, still not quite awake enough for full sentences. "Right. Thank you."

His own laughter -- richly infused with Jon's warmth -- comes down the phone. "I'll be there in 20 with coffee and Lovett." 

Pundit is not excited to be woken up this early. She gives him a half-hearted nuzzle and then flops right back to sleep. "You and me both, sweetheart," Tommy says, the tiredness of Lovett's body an almost physical weight. 

Twenty minutes and change later, Tommy is dressed in the clothes Lovett left out for him -- dark grey jeans and a well-worn Vote Save America t-shirt -- and feeling somewhat closer to human. He's surprised to find it helps _not_ being able to take the tension out on this body. No clenched fist digging nails into the palm of his hand, no shower run just too hot for comfort. There's probably a lesson here. 

Jon and Lovett show up plus dogs, coffee and a cheerful determination that This Is Going To Be Fine. Tommy doesn't believe either of them, but he believes they're committing to it -- Jon is beaming his Hope And Change smile out of Tommy's face, and Lovett is talking through a dozen reasons why "actually, if you think about it, this is the best possible way it could happen" with a manic energy that makes Jon's eyes look kind of wild. 

"Can we all maybe dial it down a little?" Tommy suggests after the third time Jon claps him on the shoulder. He wishes he could join Pundit and Leo burrowed under the covers of Lovett's bed. Maybe drag Jon, Lovett and Lucca with him too, while he's at it, the six of them hiding from the world and its increasingly exhausting demands. 

No. This is good. He's fine. They're going to get through this, and it will be great, and no one is going to nap softly on anyone else's chest. 

"Sure, sure, of course," Lovett says, abashed, at the same time as Jon says, "No, you're right, sorry. I just. Sorry." 

Jon drives them to work, while Tommy goes through his outline again and Lovett reads them an _astonishingly_ bad take from Blue Check Mark Twitter. During the Extracorporeal Exchange Incident Contingency Planning Tanya suggested maybe they do this kind of call from home. Jon made some kind of case for doing it from the office -- sound quality, maybe, or work-life boundaries -- that didn't require acknowledging how much they needed the comfort and normality of the studio. 

When they arrive, four mikes are set up, just as they discussed. 

"Tommy," David greets him from across the Atlantic, voice plummy and warm. "Great to speak to you as always, thanks for having me on. Now would you like to start with a Brexit recap, or have you already given your listeners that exciting treat?"

"If it's okay with you, David, we thought we'd start with a game," Lovett says. 

David laughs his booming laugh. "Ben's not here to keep you in check, and suddenly it's no holds barred? I like it." 

"We're in the middle of an Extracorporeal Exchange Incident --" Jon says.

"-- and we'd like you to guess --" Priyanka chimes in.

"-- which one of us is Tommy," Tommy finishes. 

David laughs again. "I think I have an idea already, but go on. Who's that with you? I hear Jon Favreau's voice, but I'm afraid I don't recognise the other two."

Tommy watches his own head duck in Jon's pleased-embarrassed reaction.

Priyanka answers first. "I'm in Priyanka Aribindi's body."

Then Tommy, "And I'm in Jon Lovett's body."

"Then good morning to all four of you," David says, "and thank you for providing me with such a charming diversion from my own parliament's woes."

They go through the routine as planned, each of them doing their best Tommy impression first with a couple of sentences taken from Tommy's intro to the episode and then with their own ad libs:

Lovett's, "This is an uncomfortably erotic experience," gets the only inelegant laugh Tommy has ever heard from David, followed by, "Ah, Mr Lovett, my apologies for not recognising your voice earlier." Jon is flushing full beet red in Tommy's skin, and Tommy can feel his (Lovett's) cheeks heat. Lovett, meanwhile, is giving them his best _too far? or not far enough?_ grin. 

Priyanka's, "I wish I was at home reading a book about fiscal policy levers," gets the more familiar David Lammy chuckle, and a, "Hmm, almost too plausible." 

Tommy goes next with, "This is so embarrassing, can we just get on with the interview?" and Jon ends with, "The highest verified number of EECPs is fourteen, but there are records of a twenty-one way exchange in sixteenth century India." 

Tommy blinks. He's pretty sure he said something similar when they first swapped a couple of months ago -- and from Lovett's outrage spreading across Jon's face, Lovett agrees. 

They stay silent, though, as David deliberates: "You're one of the last two, but I'm not sure which. You need to have me on more often, Tommy, give me a fighting chance." He pauses. "Whoever is in Tommy's body, excellent job. You could have easily fooled me. But I think Tommy is in Mr Lovett's body."

They give David a round of applause, Elijah hits the _ding!_ sound effect, and Tommy says, trying to match his intonation exactly to how Lovett does it, "You've won the game!"

It's a good bit -- short, funny, not trying too hard -- and when they listen to it back after the interview, everyone agrees it's exactly what they were going for. 

It's good, it's great, and the buzz of getting it right carries them through the early morning awkwardness of trying to get on with their jobs in each other's bodies

Sometime later, still not switched back, Lovett and Tommy finish a conference call with their HR consultant. Tommy uses the chance to say, "Thank you for the book."

Lovett waves it off. “I needed to pad my Amazon order. Hey, would it be weird if I switched to Jon’s shampoo? I can’t tell any more. It smells better than mine, but also I feel like it might be crossing a line.”

“I don’t think he’d mind,” Tommy says about the man who would literally give you the shirt off his back and act like you were doing him a favour. 

“Of course he won’t _mind_ ,” Lovett says. “That’s why I’m asking you, not him. He’d probably let himself into my house and leave a gift basket of the stuff. Wait, would you mind? I guess you’ve got a stake in these untameable yet strangely compelling semitic locks now, too.”

Lovett’s shy-smug smile when a joke lands is just as endearing whichever face it’s on.

“Won’t you need different shampoo for your hair type?” Tommy asks when he stops laughing. It’s mostly an invitation for Lovett to rant if he wants to, but there’s a hint of a sincere question in there: Tommy gets a stake in taking care of Lovett now, he needs to know these things.

Lovett just rolls his eyes. “You know what, I’m taking his shampoo. Reparations for when he inevitably lands me in bed with mystery fucking Kyle.”

He sounds like he’s angling for a reaction, so Tommy takes a punt:

“Kyle is—“

“Yeah, no, this is not that conversation, buddy,” L cuts him off. “I was going to work up to it, a meandering path from me being in bed with Kyle -- gross, his dick does not photograph well -- to you being in bed with Mark -- hot -- but: You kind of seemed like you were going to tell me something, last time we swapped. And obviously you don’t have to tell me anything if you’re not ready but I got the vibe you maybe wanted to, and also that if I leave it to you to bring it up again we will both die of old age.”

Tommy has to smile at that, only a little ruefully. “You’re not wrong.”

“It’s okay.” Lovett is looking down at his phone, giving Tommy space to react. “Just, I feel like maybe if I'd pushed Jon a little earlier, he wouldn't have been carrying around all this crap for so long." He deliberately lightens his tone. "This is very poor gay etiquette on my part. Really I should be getting you drunk and making a lot of leading comments about Jon’s thighs.”

Lovett has at once both the right and the wrong idea, and Tommy suddenly but sincerely can’t bear it, can’t bear the thought that Lovett has guessed halfway but doesn’t know the whole.

“Or yours,” he manages. It comes out shaky, but Lovett won’t judge. “I’m surrounded by, uh, excellent thighs.”

Lovett gives him a surprised, pleased flash of a smile. “Huh. I. Huh. Thank you.”

Which Tommy supposes is its own kind of answer. Still, it feels good to have said it.

When Jon finally returns from his meeting, they're in the middle of a spirited argument about trains, maybe? Tommy lost track somewhere in the third digression, but he’s 90% sure they’re still on infrastructure. 80% sure. 

“I’m just saying, there are bridges that fuck and then there are bridges that _fuck_.” Lovett makes a gesture that is, if you squint, vaguely reminiscent of a horny bridge. 

“Never do that again,” Tommy says. What he means, of course, is _thank you_.

“I’ll give you a dollar if you follow him around for the rest of the day doing that,” Jon says, because he thinks he’s funny. “Is this about Harbor Bridge?”

“ _New_ Harbor Bridge,” Lovett says tartly. “Which, if you’re keeping score —“

“No one’s keeping score,” Tommy chips in.

“— does not fuck.”

“Do you remember when we rated infrastructure by other metrics?” Jon says to Tommy. “Scale. Cost. Economic impact. Social impact.”

Tommy shakes his head sadly. “It was a more innocent time.”

Lovett makes the bridge-that-fucks gesture again. Jon, that asshole, cash apps him a dollar.

"Hey, so," Jon says, after Tommy has accused him of betraying their lifelong bond and Lovett has lauded him as the only person with taste in the entire state of California, "I still think this EEI situation might be my fault, and I want you to know I'm working on it."

And sure, Tommy thought he was used to this, but seeing Jon's brand of earnest guilt on his own face is like nothing else. He kind of wants to give himself a hug. 

"I thought we were over this?" Lovett says. "Not your fault, not anyone's fault, wouldn't matter if it were anyone's fault but it isn't. If, however, you want to get day-drunk and talk about unresolved issues, I think this is the last time we can play the EEI card before it's just business as usual." He shrugs, no big deal.

Kindness, Tommy thinks to himself. Kindness. He ignores the part of him screaming not to make anything weird, and stands to give Jon a hug. 

"We can also not get day-drunk but still talk about it," he offers. 

It's weird to hug his own body with Lovett's, but he leans into the weird, letting himself absorb the feel of his own body wrapped up in Lovett's arms, pressed against Lovett's solid chest. Letting himself live in this moment, without fear or judgement. Letting himself have in this body what he'd want Lovett to have in it. 

"It's okay," Jon says. It's not the least bit convincing. 

Tommy and Lovett are silent, waiting Jon out. 

Tommy can feel, chest-to-chest, the deep breath Jon takes: "I'm working on it. I'm going to, with Kyle, I'm going to make the effort." Jon says it like he's breaking himself open for them, and Tommy doesn't understand it but he knows he doesn't like it. 

"Jon," he says into his own shoulder. They still haven't met Kyle, two months and change into Jon kind of dating him. It's not a great look for Kyle. He's not sure what the right question to ask is, but he makes a stab for it: "Do you want to make the effort with Kyle?" 

Jon doesn't flinch at that, not exactly, but there's a moment of full-body tension, a careful lack of movement that tells Tommy all he needs to know. 

"Why are you dating a guy you don't like when--" When Lovett's here. When Tommy's here. When there's a whole universe of men and women out there who would gladly give Jon the time of day and then some. "When you don't have to," Tommy finishes, annoyed at himself. 

There's another silence, but this one has a different quality to it. 

It lasts for an age. Tommy-as-Lovett stays holding Jon-as-Tommy. Lovett-as-Jon stays sitting on his chair, body sloped halfway between Lovett's normal posture and Jon's. No one speaks. 

"Hey, so, I have an unresolved issue," Tommy hears himself say out of Lovett's mouth. 

He can't pretend it's not him speaking, but he can pretend to be brave like Lovett. He can pretend to be kind to himself, like he and Jon both would be to Lovett. He closes his (Lovett's) eyes, Jon-in-his-body still pressed against him in this hug that feels like an embrace. 

He doesn't want to do this. 

"Yeah?" Lovett's tone is gentle. There's a silence where they can all three hear the joke he's not making, something about repressed WASPs, maybe, or unresolved cheekbones. It helps that Lovett already knows, or kind of knows. "You want to talk about it, Tommy?"

No. No, he doesn't, not even a little. But he doesn't want to keep feeling like this, he _definitely_ doesn't want Jon to keep feeling like, and nothing is going to change unless he changes it. 

His throat feels tight. 

"Not really," he says, "but I think maybe I should."

"Relatable," Lovett says. 

"Right." Tommy swallows hard. "No one has to, this isn't on anyone but me. I--"

Darkness. A brief, fleeting memory of pain. 

And suddenly Tommy is being hugged by Lovett, which, not that he doesn't want to be, but he doesn't want Lovett to have to? And there's no way to phrase that without making things twenty times more awkward than they need to be right now, so instead Tommy just pulls back away from Lovett's comforting warmth and says to his own feet:

"No one has to, this _really_ isn't--"

"On anyone but you, yes, we know," Lovett interrupts. "If you need a kidney, Jon's got two in perfect working order and a vested interest in keeping your body going." 

Tommy laughs a little wetly. He wants to say, this is stupid, never mind, I'm fine. He doesn't. 

"I just came out to Lovett," he says to Jon. "And now I'm coming out to you. As bi. Kind of. No. Yes. As bi. I'm sorry I didn't tell either of you before, but it was always so tangled up in my feelings for you -- for both of you -- it didn't seem like there was any point."

His heart is hammering in his chest. All the measured breaths in the world aren't going to help with this. He tries to tell himself he doesn't need them to. It's just Lovett and Jon. They'll get through this. They might be disappointed in him, or weirded out, but they've seen him through worse. 

It'll be okay. Probably. Yes. No. It will. It'll be okay. 

"I'm not asking you to--"

"Your feelings for us?" Lovett cuts him off. He sounds way more stunned than he has any right to be, given that Tommy has already had this conversation with him. 

Tommy nods. 

"Tom." Jon's voice is hoarse. "I. Wow."

"I know, it's a lot, I'm a lot, but." Tommy pauses. Steels himself. In every way that matters, this is the hardest part to say:

"I thought, if one of you were feeling like this, then even if I, if I didn't feel like this myself, I'd still want you to be able to tell me? I'd still want to know so I could help not make things worse. I'd want the chance to help, if I could. And no one has to do anything, this isn't on anyone but me, but I wanted to give you the chance I'd want you to give me." 

"Jesus Christ, Vietor," Lovett says, at the same time as Jon says, " _Tommy._ "

Then the two of them are hugging him, one from either side, and it's all he could have asked for. 

"You are so much braver than me, man," Jon says. "I was just going to keep seeing Kyle and trying to fuck away my-- Um. Same, is what I mean. I only realised it when Kyle-- I wasn't handling it well. About both of you, I feel the same. That's why, what I think could have triggered these swaps. Sorry, Lovett, I know you're not interested. In me, I mean."

It makes Tommy's gut twist, that Lovett's not interested in either of them like that. Even if he can't have Lovett -- even if he can, somehow, maybe, it sounds like, have Jon? -- he feels deep in his heart that Jon and Lovett would be good together. Fuck, though. Thank fuck for Kyle, is all he can think. 

"In me either," Tommy reassures Jon. It's not so bad. Lovett is still hugging him, after all. 

Lovett is not hugging him. Lovett is backing away, hissing through his teeth like an angry gay tea kettle. 

"Since when," Lovett bites out, "did you -- both of you, independently -- decide I 'wasn't interested' --" He doesn't make air quotes, but they can hear them anyway. "-- in whatever the fuck is going on here?" 

Tommy and Jon break apart, the hug unbalanced now Lovett's noped out. Tommy daringly reaches out and links a pinky with Jon. The feel of it sends a thrill all up his arm. He would feel kind of ridiculous about it, but Jon's blushing. 

"You just told me?" Tommy offers when it becomes clear Jon's not going to take this one. "After the call? Like, half an hour ago? I said I had a thing for you, and you said thanks but no thanks."

"That is not what happened, Thomas. One of my best friends came out to me as bisexual and then told me he was surrounded by excellent thighs. At no point did you-- Wait. Wait." Lovett turns his gaze on Jon. "When you told me about Kyle, and you said he was almost as short as me, was that _your_ version of the Tommy Vietor Give Someone An Oblique Compliment And Hope They Intuit You're In L-- Whatever With Them Variety Hour? Only less oblique compliment and more rude and unnecessary jibe at my perfectly normal height?"

From the look on Jon's face, it's pretty obvious the answer is yes. 

Lovett holds up a hand. "Give me thirty seconds to re-align my entire world view and undo three and a half decades of internalising this homophobic hellscape's views on gays, comma, predatory?"

Somewhere in all that, Jon has unlinked their pinkies to thread his fingers through Tommy's. It's very fucking cute. 

They stay like that for, shit, Tommy doesn't know how long. Thirty seconds? Thirty years? 

It's long enough for Lovett to scrub his face with his hands, laugh short and sharp, and turn so he's facing away from them. 

It's long enough for Jon to squeeze Tommy's hand, for Tommy to squeeze back, for the two of them not to look at each other directly just in case that pops the soap bubble of hope between them. 

It's long enough for Lovett to face them again. He looks-- Tommy doesn't like it. He looks scared. 

Lovett grimaces. "For the record: This is a disaster. You're both absolute disasters. I can't believe I'm about to do this --" His voice wavers slightly, not quite a query, then picks up again. "-- with two men -- two! -- who between them can't even ask a boy to prom." 

Tommy's breath catches. 

That's an opening, isn't it? That's Lovett giving them an opening. 

It must be. 

"Lovett," Tommy says, swinging his and Jon's linked hands between them. "Will you go to prom with us?"

Lovett rolls his eyes dramatically, but when he speaks, the words come out soft: "You know how hard it was _not_ to fall in love with you assholes? I spent _years_ avoiding even idle fantasies about the two of you, after the first time I tried to imagine a threesome and it ended up with the two of you--" He stops. Takes a breath. Starts again. "It was embarrassing. Explicit sexual whatever, fine, but what self-respecting gay daydreams about soft-focus romance with his unobtainable straight bros?"

He shakes his head, then continues: "Yes. Of course. Negate all my years of hard work in a heartbeat, why don't you?"

He takes Tommy's free hand in one hand, and Jon's free hand in the other. 

"Right. Good." And Lovett is speaking briskly now, at odds with the shy way he's looking at their joined hands. It's like his tone and his body language have to keep trading off which one of them is going to be sincere. "You stop your smugness right there, Favreau, this proves nothing about EEIs and unresolved issues. Just because--"

"You say that," Jon interrupts, voice bubbling over with joy, "but what man of science rejects the evidence of his own eyes? I mean--" 

Tommy stands there, hopelessly, helplessly in love, and lets the argument wash over him. 

#

If he'd thought about it, which he really had been doing his best not to, Tommy would have voted himself Least Likely To Take The Lead In Group Sex Activities. Lovett has all the experience, and Jon is the natural moderator of the three of them. Tommy's never had a threesome _or_ touched someone else's dick before, which puts him two-for-two behind both of the others. 

None of which explains why he's the one rushing them out of the office in the middle of the day -- "Need to go home! Playing the EEI card! Text me if it's important!" -- with one hand each on the smalls of Jon and Lovett's backs, desperate beyond desperate to get them somewhere he can actually do something about their unfair threesome-and-dick-touching advantage. 

"Break up with Kyle," he tells Jon in the car. 

"Kind of driving here?" Jon says like that's important. It's Tommy's car, but after Tommy fumbled the keys twice, Jon nudged him aside. 

Jon's smiling, though, and at the next stop light he passes his phone back to Lovett. "Hey, could you, uh, text Kyle and tell him I won't be seeing him this weekend?"

"Good call," Lovett says. "If you gave your phone to Mr Murder Eyes over here, he'd probably take out a hit on Kyle." 

Tommy would not take out a hit on Kyle. Tommy wouldn't know how to. 

"I'm into the tone of this 'neither confirm nor deny' silence you've got going on," Lovett says. "Menacing, but in a sexy way." There's a tiny twist of a question to the joke, like maybe he's not 100% sure he can say that, even now. 

Fortunately, Jon takes this one before Tommy can blurt out anything even more embarrassing than he's already managed. 

"This is not how I imagined today going," Jon says. "It's good, don't get me wrong, it's really good, but it's--"

"Unexpected?" Lovett offers. 

"Unexpected," Jon agrees. "Like, again, it's good, but should we maybe talk a bit more about our expectations before we do anything more, uh, more?" 

No one makes a move to talk about their expectations. Tommy's heart beats in his throat. 

"I think if we make Tommy talk about his feelings again he may actually explode," Lovett says. "I'm still not convinced this isn't an elaborate joke, but the balance of evidence suggests we're--" He cuts himself off. "Okay. Fran Lovett didn't raise no coward. Or, she did, but let's pretend for a minute that she didn't. Look. I'm all in if you guys are. But if you aren't, maybe Jon's right and we should--" 

"I'm all in," Tommy says quickly. 

"Me too," Jon says. 

Tommy’s body is great at storing tension — something he’s even more keenly aware of now he’s had a few spins in Lovett’s — but some of it ebbs away. What’s left is not tension, exactly, or not the bad kind. It’s the thrum of anticipation. Of want. 

Jon drives them back to Jon’s, only realising it when they get there. He starts to apologize, like maybe he should have polled them beforehand for the best threesome location, but Lovett talks over him until he shuts up. 

Tommy doesn’t care. He just wants them inside. 

“Upstairs,” he says when they get in. 

They both laugh at him, but they go, trading jokes back and forth about Good Ole Murder Eyes Vietor and his whatever, Tommy’s not listening, he just needs them to be past the awkwardness and into the thing where it’s comfortable and easy and forever. Also, the last person Jon fucked in here was Kyle, and now he’s finally, finally allowed to be not okay with that, Tommy has a lot of not okay to catch up on. 

Seven years ago two women took Jon home and used him like he was made for it, and they didn’t realise what they had. 

“Hey, Murder Eyes,” Lovett says, cupping Tommy’s jaw gently to direct his gaze. “You kinda seem like you have a game plan here? Want to fill the rest of us in?”

Tommy kisses him. 

Lovett’s mouth is so fucking eager under his, a conversation and an argument and a promise all at once. Their hands find each other’s, and Lovett rocks ever so carefully against him, like Tommy's someone precious, like he's exactly where he needs to be. Tommy is so fiercely, painfully glad they're in their own bodies for this. That he gets to kiss Lovett right, that it's Lovett's gorgeous mouth and Lovett's gorgeous brain together for this, the real deal. Lovett in Jon's body was hot as fuck, but Lovett as himself is perfect. 

And then Tommy kisses Jon, because he has to, he has to know what Jon kisses like, that can't be a thing fucking Kyle knows and he doesn't, it can't be. He kisses Jon hard, knowing as he does it that he's being too much again, he's putting more in than anyone could be expected to handle, and trusting Jon with it anyway. 

Jon kisses back just as hard, a scorching kiss Tommy feels to his toes. Everything Tommy puts in, Jon gives back to him, until the two of them are panting into each other's mouths, clutching at each other in matched need. 

Just as with Lovett, it's made even more fucking perfect by the fact that this is Jon in his own body. Tommy would have happily kissed Jon in Tommy's body if that was the offer, would maybe even have learned to like his body better as an instrument for Jon's kiss, but this is the Jon he's loved so long he can't remember not loving him, the both of them in the bodies that have seen them through campaigns and presidencies and what came after, and he's so grateful he gets to have this first kiss with everyone in their right place. 

Tommy breaks away and pushes Jon towards Lovett. Jon gives another one of those laughs, like he sees Tommy and he's delighted by him, like Tommy's intensity can be part of this without being too much. Like a man who's been in Tommy's fucked up anxious body on three separate occasions and still wants to be with him. 

Jon and Lovett kissing is fireworks going off in Tommy's soul. They're so perfect together he has to sit down on Jon's bed, his knees unable to cope with the way Jon is smiling into Lovett's mouth, with the way Lovett sways without realising it. He really fucking loves them.

Lovett lets out a low moan and -- with visible effort -- turns to Tommy. 

"Good plan." Lovett shakes himself. He and Favs are both smiling, open and brilliant, and Tommy could happily live in this moment forever, only Lovett's right, he does have a plan. 

A part of him wants to slow down, to check that Jon and Lovett know -- that they really get it, what this means to him, how incredibly _all in_ he is -- but buried somewhere under the lust and the wanting and the desperation and the love is the knowledge that he doesn't need to. They know. They get him, they get this. They're here with him, enjoying him, enjoying this.

So instead he gets their clothes off, positions Jon on his hands and knees, places his hand carefully, possessively, on the back of Jon's neck, not worrying that he's going too fast, not worrying that he's being too much, just getting them there, together. 

"Fuck," Lovett sighs, looking Jon's lean, naked body over with a heat that goes straight to Tommy's dick. " _Good plan._ " He lets his eyes travel up Tommy's body, soaking him in. Tommy burns under his gaze. Lovett has been calling him hot since pretty much the first time they met, but here, right now, is the point where Tommy believes him. Where Tommy is kind of glad of his own body, too, that it can make Lovett look at him like that. 

"Get him ready," Tommy says hoarsely. He keeps his hands steady and sure on the back of Jon's neck, absorbing every tiny movement as Lovett preps him. Jon's shoulders tense and relax, tense and relax, and he lets out these gorgeous, punched-out breaths that Tommy wants to kiss from his mouth, but Tommy stays where he is. He's got a job to do, keeping Jon steady, keeping him present until they begin. 

Jon's arm muscles are trembling by the time Lovett's finished. For a fraction of a moment, Tommy has a pang that he doesn't know what that feels like from the inside. That's something Jon and Lovett share that he doesn't, just as he and Lovett know Lovett's body, and he and Jon know his own. And just like that, the pang is gone, replaced with a thrill of satisfaction, of knowing and being known inside and out by his two favourite people. 

"You need to change position?" he checks in with Jon. 

Jon's quick, choked, "No," sends a shiver up and down Tommy's spine. 

"We're going to fuck you now," Tommy says gently. "I'll use your mouth, Lovett will use your ass. Like you were made for it, Jon. Like you were made for us." 

Over Jon's wet, heavy breaths Tommy hears Lovett gasp. He looks up from the back of Jon's neck to see Lovett staring straight at him, eyes dark and lips parted. 

When their eyes meet, Lovett takes a deep, shaky breath, and lifts his hands from Jon -- from Jon's hole, _he lifts his hands from Jon's hole_ \-- to give Tommy two thumbs up. 

It's ridiculous and it's perfect and it's exactly what Tommy needed. This is still them. It's hot and emotionally fraught and for all they've said they mean it, no one can promise that, but it's still them doing it, and they've done scarier things together and come out alive. 

Tommy beams at Lovett, corners of his mouth stretching wide, and Lovett beams back, and fuck, Tommy is so in love with them both. 

"Do you want my dick first," Tommy says when he's got his smile under control, "or Lovett's?" He pauses. Considers. Thinks about who Jon is, what he wants. "Or both at the same time?"

Jon nods at the last one.

"Okay, okay, good," Tommy says. He strokes the back of Jon's neck firmly, lost in the way Jon relaxes under him. "You can be good for us, can't you?" 

Jon nods again, frantic. 

"If it's too much, just--"

Jon slaps his hand against the mattress twice. 

"Perfect. That's perfect, Jon." 

Tommy takes Jon's face in his hands, tilts it upwards, and presses his fingers to Jon's lips, opening up his mouth the way Lovett opened up his hole. It's a lot. Jon's mouth is slack, open, willing. He looks completely out of it, right up until the moment he lifts his eyes to meet Tommy's and gives him a glare that says, clear as anything, _What the fuck are you waiting for?_

Tommy smothers his laugh down, and looks to Lovett. "You ready?"

"As I'll ever be."

Tommy feeds Jon his cock, slowly but steadily, one tortuous, aching slide matched by Lovett, who's gripping Jon's hips hard enough to leave marks. 

Jon moans around his cock. 

_Is this enough?_ Tommy wants to say to him. _Are we giving you what you need?_

Tears are forming at the corners of Jon's eyes. Tommy brushes them away. 

"Lovett," Tommy says, his cock hot and heavy in Jon's mouth. "Go to town." 

Lovett fucks like a champion, long, even strokes that run right through Jon and end up around Tommy's cock. Jon's mouth is wet and sloppy and moving on Tommy with each thrust, and it's so unbearably hot Tommy can't breathe for it. 

He tries to pull out when he gets close, but Jon grabs him with one hand, presses him back in harder, enough that that's what tips him over the edge, spilling into Jon's mouth and down his chin to the feel of Jon's hand pulling him closer, to the sight of Lovett fucking Jon with a tenderness brighter than the sun. 

Lovett comes soon after, sending shudders through Jon and right onto Tommy's oversensitive cock. It's. Yeah. It's a lot. 

As soon as they've both pulled out of Jon, he flops onto his back, a happy, satisfied sprawl that leaves no doubts about how he's feeling. The joy in him is a living thing. Tommy can't look away from him. 

"Someone needs to hold me," Jon says, voice gravelly. 

And so Jon brings himself off in a few quick, tight strokes, while Tommy and Lovett curl around him, half holding him and half leaning against him, the three of them too wrecked to manage anything more coordinated. 

It's desperately hot and desperately heartfelt, the way the two of them -- these two bodies Tommy has inhabited, these two people who love Jon best -- are bracketing Jon, holding him the way they both know he wants, surrounding him with their love and care. It's such a fucking gift Tommy has been given, to be here with them, doing this. 

Jon afterwards is loose and happy. His smile is a whole body experience. 

"Fuck," Lovett says. "Who knew we had a group sex savant in our midst?" 

Tommy laughs into Jon's shoulder, and Jon wraps his arm around Tommy to tug him in closer, and on Jon's other side Lovett leans in so he can touch his fingers to Tommy's on Jon's belly, and Tommy is truly, honestly happy. 

###

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments/kudos very much appreciated.
> 
> Normally this would be where I tell you to come say hi on twitter ([@krfabian](https://twitter.com/krfabian)) but my account is unlocked so I never talk about this fandom on there. You're welcome to come say hi anyway! :)
> 
> Title is from Hammer and a Nail by The Indigo Girls:
> 
> Now I know a refuge never grows  
> From a chin in a hand in a thoughtful pose  
> Gotta tend the earth if you want a rose


End file.
